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The articles of this issue come from different research groups, different universities and countries, with different approaches, perhaps connected only through the perspective of thinking about the curriculum in a non-prescriptive way, open to defer. Perhaps what also connects these articles is the political option to say, in the face of any authoritarianism and any violence against the identity of the other, “We prefer not to accept it”.

This special issue aims at advancing curriculum research in a transnational perspective by the help of both a critical, Bildung centered, non-affirmative education theory and discursive institutionalism. Given that this research program is recently initiated, the intention is here to explore in what ways these approaches might be fruitful for understanding of how different actors and practices, at different levels of the education system, within nation-states, with their different, historically developed education policies, mediate between the transnational, national, regional and local levels? We ask how non-affirmative theory of education be utilized as a frame of reference in understanding both curriculum reform work, teaching and educational leadership? Can discursive institutionalism operate as a complementary approach to education or curriculum theory, in understanding how educational policies, ideas and values relate to governance processes and educational practice at different levels?

In this issue, we publish some articles with the ideas that were presented and discussed at the Curriculum-Society Colloquium: voices, tensions and perspectives, held in October 2016, at National Autonomous University of Mexico. These papers try to be a contribution to the internationalization of curricular studies in Latin America and the rest of the world.
This issue is also in memory of William E. Doll, JR. As he wrote: "The linear, sequential, easily, quantifiable ordering system dominating education today - one focusing on clear beginnings and definite endings - could give way to a more complex, pluralistic, unpredictable system or network" (William E. Doll, JR. , in A post-modern perspective on curriculum, 1993). We try to honour his intention. Rest in peace, Bill Doll.